Someone looking at the political map of Nepal today must wonder how it has managed to stay independent for so long, how one of the great Indian or Chinese rulers in the past did not make it his own. ...... After the end of the Cold War there has been a wave of disintegration around the world as people's aspirations for greater autonomy and self-rule are being realized, not always thorough democratic means. As the federal experiment in Nepal is being hijacked by vested interests, there are fears Nepal might also implode. ....... The way the two countries signed a treaty on movement of goods via Lipulekh, a tri-junction border point between the three countries, without informing Nepal, suggests that the two emerging superpowers will comfortably overlook Nepal's vital interests if it suits them. This is a sign that things are starting to slip out of the control of the political establishment in Kathmandu. ........ The Madheshis and Tharus want to be ruled by their own representatives, which Kathmandu is not ready to concede, not yet. But if the inhabitants of Madhesh continue to be pushed away, their gravitation towards India will only increase. Nor is the demography in Madhesh in the favor of the Kathmandu ruling elite. ...... This is why in private conversations

political leaders of Pahadi origin express fear that Madhesh might finally have gone out of their hands.

.......... possible only if the ruling elite in Kathmandu can see the writing on the wall and realizes that

there is no alternative to a federal model that respects the sensitivities of Madheshis and Janajatis.

........ the only way the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Nepal can be maintained is through real devolution of political power to marginalized communities through judicious state-restructuring. ..... India's disproportionate influence in Nepal is not something that can be wished away. Nor can its direct intervention here be ruled out completely. But

the biggest threat to Nepal's existence right now is still not RAW or India or China, or any of the other foreign forces that are often blamed for destabilizing Nepali polity. It's our shortsighted leaders who refuse to face the hard truth.